On The Wing
by kate avalanche
Summary: Well, Your Highness, it looks like you've found a little falcon chick. A Merlin." "A Merlin?" the falconer nodded, "Then I think I'll name him…Merlin." The prince had never been the most imaginative of children. MxA AU, rated for eventual scenes


This has been in the works forever, but an author I love who primarily posts on LiveJournal said she wanted fluff/porn/something from the Merlinverse. I figured, why not post the intro today? Maybe it'll be the kick in the pants I need to write the rest...

No warnings right now, except for brief and completely explainable nudity with next to no sexual implications.

* * *

"Yes! I win again," Arthur crowed. He shook his sword above his head, his mouth stretched into a wide, triumphant grin. That was the third consecutive win of the day, and the little prince was unable to contain himself.

Lance, his most recent opponent, smiled and good-naturedly clapped the prince on the back, "You did at that, my lord. You'll make a fine king one day."

With the fights done for the day, the spectators drifted off, and Lancelot left with a few of the older boys. Arthur took off his protective gear, thinking about how proud his father would be when he told him that he'd managed to defeat Lancelot at swords. Granted, they were wooden practice swords, but Lancelot was one of the best. And he was two years older than Arthur. And when you're only seven and one half, two years is an almost unfathomable length of time.

He walked towards the shed where the practice gear was kept. When he reached the doorway, he heard hushed voices. One of them sounded like Lance…

"-just haven't the heart to tell him."

"It'll only hurt him more the longer it goes on, you know," a different voice that time, a girl. Guinevere?

"How do you suggest I tell Arthur that the only reason he always wins is because his friends are too afraid to strike the crown prince? It would crush him."

Arthur suddenly couldn't breathe. What was Lancelot saying? There was no reason to fear hitting him, he wasn't some girl. Oh. And then it hit him, all the times he'd heard whispered gossip. Gossip about how small and frail he looked, about how he was the only heir to the throne, with the Lady Igraine dead and the king still in mourning after all these years, about how it was unseemly for the prince to play with common boys and lesser nobles.

Common.

The word hit Arthur like a fist to the gut. Lancelot, Gawaine, Bors, Agravaine, Pellinor, Kay, and even little Galahad, they were all his friends. At least, he'd thought so. They talked and laughed and fought and ate together, and wasn't that what friends were?

Wasn't it?

And all of a sudden, Arthur was running, his gear forgotten in a heap by the shed. He ran without any destination in mind, just so long as he got away from the practice field and the shed and the people who lied to him. The copse of trees his father asked him to avoid was growing closer and closer as he ran. In the back of his mind, he knew his father would be cross with him for disobeying, but at the moment that seemed the least of his worries. It was secluded enough that he could be alone, and that was all he wanted just then.

But as he wandered farther into the wood, his father's warnings drifted to the forefront of his thoughts. This was a wood of bandits and thieves and outcast warlocks, not a hiding place for young boys. The young prince wasn't frightened enough to turn back, but just enough to cast a wary eye around him for movement.

He spotted a place where two trees grew right next to each other, the bases of their trunks forming a little seat, their branches a canopy. It seemed an agreeable enough place to sit awhile, so he settled himself between the two trees, his shoulder slumped against one.

His thoughts began to calm from the frenzied tangle they had been before. The hurt and anger subsided, replaced with a faint sadness. He stared blankly off into the distance. He might even have fallen asleep, if not for what happened then.

Bonk. Thwomp. _Skreee!_

Arthur's hand flew to the crown of his head where something small and soft had just hit, then looked down at his lap where the white ball of fluff had landed and was now shrieking as loud as his tiny lungs allowed. The prince couldn't hold back the laughter that bubbled up upon looking at this pitiful, little ball of fury. Its wings flapped frantically, serving more to flip him upside down in Arthur's lap than anything else. The pointed beak snapped and eyes darted about as miniscule toes scrabbled at the air.

The boy looked up into the branches above him, searching for a nest from which the bird could have fallen. As he scooped it up into his hands, closing his fingers around it gently so it couldn't flail about and fall to the ground, he stood to get a closer look. No matter how he squinted or leaned, however, there seemed to be no nest or anything that could have served as one. Arthur looked back down at the chick in his hands, now no longer thrashing, but merely glowering at the prince.

"Little bird, I don't know that I can return you to your family. But I can't just leave you here… Would you mind terribly living with me?"

The fuzz ball cocked its head to the side, but the glower was gone. If Arthur hadn't known better, he would have sworn the bird…had understood him. And it looked pleased with the idea.

Arthur gave a little smile, turning back towards the castle and beginning the walk home, bird in hand.

When the boy reached the castle, he was careful to slip through corridors people rarely used. It took him longer to get to his chambers, but he didn't think his father would approve of him keeping a bird in his room, and he wasn't about to give up his new friend.

* * *

"Tomorrow," Arthur yawned and looked at the bird nestled on a spare pillow on his bed, "I'll take you to the Falconer and see if he can show me how to take care of you. Goodnight, little bird. And with that, he slipped off to sleep.

* * *

"Well, Your Highness, it looks like you've found a little falcon chick. If I'm not mistaken, I think it's a merlin falcon. And he seems to have decided that you're his new mommy," the falconer chuckled as he handed the squirming bird back to the prince. The instant the chick was back in Arthur's hands, he stopped wriggling and turned his head to watch his "mommy".

"A merlin?" the falconer nodded, "Then I think I'll name him…Merlin."

The prince had never been the most imaginative of children.

* * *

Arthur couldn't sleep. At first, he'd thought it was excitement keeping him awake, excitement for his birthday the next morning. After all, turning thirteen is a big deal for a prince. It means he can begin the next step in his training, and that he will start gaining new responsibilities, responsibilities that he would need to already be good at when he became king one day.

But the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that no, it wasn't excitement. It was more apprehension. He had never been the best at anything. Always respectable, but never excellent.

There were times when Arthur would notice his father watching him, and he would beam with pride…until he noticed the king's expression. It was always tinged with disappointment. So the prince would try harder, practice longer, study more. And even though he would improve, there was still a pit in the bottom of his stomach that gaped wide and painful when he saw the king look at him like that.

He was startled from his thoughts by a scratching sound at the window. Blinking back the tears threatening to form at the corners of his eyes, he looked up.

Arthur's face broke into a smile, it was Merlin beating his wings and tapping at the glass insistently.

He threw his feet over the side of the bed, shoving the covers off and practically dashing across the room to the window where Merlin fluttered. If Arthur didn't know better, he would have sworn that the bird was giving him an impatient glare.

The instant the prince had the window open, Merlin darted in. He settled on the boy's shoulder for only a moment, only to leap right back into the air and out the window.

Arthur nodded, understanding that the bird wanted him to come outside. He grabbed the rope ladder from its hiding place in his armoire, fastened it to the leg of the heavy furniture, and quickly shimmied down the wall of the castle.

* * *

Arthur leaned back against a gnarled tree trunk, his eyes slipping closed. He welcomed the scrape of the rough bark against the bare skin of his back. His shirt lay on the ground beside him, cast off in the summer heat. Uncounted minutes passed and the prince was rapidly leaving consciousness for sleep. Then, there was the feeling of eyes on him.

He sat bolt upright, suddenly very awake and his hand flying to where his sword would normally hang, had he been wearing anything more than the light, cotton breeches. His blue eyes searched the surroundings, and for a moment he was certain he had seen a pale figure dash behind a clump of trees. He made a move to get up when, from behind those same trees, emerged a familiar shape.

"Merlin," Arthur sighed, a relieved smile on his lips. The falcon flew easily over to him to perch on his knee. He raised his hand and ran it gently along the bird's tawny feathers and, not for the first time, wondered at those blue eyes, so unusual for a bird. They also seemed far too expressive and intelligent to belong to any normal bird, watching him with rapt attention and responding to him almost like a conversation.

Merlin had been a constant presence in his life since Arthur had found him, a laughably ugly little chick, twelve years before. Now Arthur was nineteen. Sometimes he wondered how long falcons normally lived. He has a strange feeling it couldn't be as long as Merlin had already lived. The birds some of the knights used for hunting rarely lasted more than six or seven years. Regardless, the prince was grateful his feathered friend still came to cheer him up whenever it all became too much for the young man to handle.

"You know, Merlin, sometimes I really wish you were human. It would be nice to have a proper conversation with one of my oldest friends," he let out a soft laugh, "It's a pity that can't happen."

The bird cocked his head to the side and uttered a small cry. Then, something strange happened. His eyes, peculiarly blue as they were, suddenly turned the proper yellow of a falcon. Except falcon's eyes didn't glow and shimmer like gold, as Merlin's certainly did right then.

As if that weren't strange enough to begin with, Merlin's tiny bird body began to shift and warp in a way that would have been horrifying if Arthur hadn't been so transfixed by those golden eyes. The falcon grew in size as his hooked beak shrunk and softened, taloned toes became feet, feathers faded to a subtle pattern and then vanished entirely, leaving milky white skin, and wings became long, slender arms ending in elegant fingers. The dark feathers on top of his head had become a tousled mop of thick, black hair, and the hidden ears of the falcon somehow translated to almost comically large human ears.

Wait. Human. Arthur had just found himself with a lapful of very real, very naked human boy who didn't look more than a year past twenty.

"What the hell just happened?" he blurted.

The boy blinked slowly, the gold all but gone and his eyes returned to their normal, striking blue. Then his face broke into a wide smile that simply radiated joy, "Arthur!" He flung his arms around the prince and clutched him to his chest.

His _naked_ chest.

"Woah, just a minute, Merlin," Arthur snatched up the shirt he had discarded earlier and handed it to the boy. Merlin examined the garment for a moment, as though trying to recall something. He took the shirt and tried to put it on, but only managed to get his head stuck in the sleeve. He let out a birdlike cry of dismay and Arthur had no choice but to help him out, stuffing his head through the neck hole and arms through the sleeves, "Now. How did you…do this?"

"Magic," the boy gave him a cheeky smile. Then, quick as a flash, he swooped down to brush his lips against the tip of Arthur's nose. He drew back slowly, "I have wanted to do that for at least four years. You have an absolutely brilliant nose."

Arthur saw that Merlin intended to kiss him again and stopped him, squishing the boy's face between his hands. One pair of blue eyes searched another, but the prince had no idea what he was expecting to find there. Did he think Merlin a wide-eyed innocent? Because one look told him that was not the case at all. It wasn't entirely surprising, considering that as a bird, Merlin often spent cooler nights in Arthur's chambers, and Heaven only knew how much he'd seen in there.

The blond flushed hotly at that thought. At nineteen, there was little Arthur hadn't already tried when it came to sex. Men, women, lowborn, highborn, the prince had tried them all at least once. But now he had this lapful of exquisitely formed youth that seemed only too eager to try out some of what he'd witnessed over the years, and Arthur had never felt more confused in all his life.

Wait. Had he just thought Merlin was exquisite? He looked again at the boy, now making the most ridiculous perturbed face from between his hands. Despite the amusing expression, Arthur had to admit that yes, his formerly feathered friend was stunning. With sharp cheekbones, a long, creamy white throat, elegant fingers, and legs that went for days, all of it topped off by those glittering blue eyes and the messy black hair, Merlin was very nearly everything Arthur liked in his partners.

So why did he hesitate?

The prince smiled when he realized; it was because Merlin, be he bird or boy, was his best friend. And friends don't throw friends on the forest floor and ravish them. …or something like that.

"Can you change back and forth?" Arthur asked, wondering what he was going to do, showing up at the castle with a naked boy no one knew. How he would explain that boy sleeping in his room…

Merlin made a face as though he were concentrating on something very hard, he squeezed his eyes shut tight, his fingers curled and uncurled. Then,

"Doesn't look like it," he gave a bashful smile, "I'm not even really sure how I did it in the first place."

"Of course." Arthur rolled his eyes, "So, Merlin. What am I going to do with you? I'm not exactly sure bringing a strange, half naked boy into the castle will go over well."

The brunet looked indignant, "And how am I strange?"

The only response he got from Arthur was a pointed look and a lopsided smile. The prince let out a sigh and, in a contemplative voice, said "Well. I could always use a manservant. The last one was absolute rubbish, a complete clod who couldn't find his ass with both hands. Do you think you could be up to it, old friend?"

Merlin sat up tall, beaming at Arthur.

"I guess that settles it then. Come on," Arthur stood, dusting himself off, "I've got convincing lies to think up."

* * *

I have the oddest plot bunnies sometimes. Thoughts? Questions, comments, complaints? You know what to do.


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